


Heavy are the Branches

by Jamie_Blue



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Robin, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 06:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13992117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamie_Blue/pseuds/Jamie_Blue
Summary: Tim's being abused by his distant parents. He might not have bruises, but that doesn’t mean that isn’t what’s happening. Along the way, Robin helps.//I found you shaking like a leaf / Underneath your family tree





	Heavy are the Branches

At thirteen years old, there are few things that Tim Drake hates more than charity galas. His parents show up after months of disappearance in some far-off country conducting business or taking time off for their health, stuff Tim in a tuxedo that’s always too big, and parade him around a room full of blue bloods like they’re the model parents they desperately want the world to think they are.

“This is Timothy,” they simper, and Tim has to shake the sweating hands of diplomats and politicians and CEOs, has to brush his lips across the bejeweled knuckles of society wives and ice queens.

“He’s an honors student,” they explain. “Skipped two grades, can you even imagine?” Like they’re _proud_ , like they _care_. Like they’re around often enough to notice, like they haven’t just made a call to the principal of his elite private school to find out whether he’s even been attending.

And the thing is, it doesn’t necessarily bother him, his absentee parents. He’s carved a life of his own, albeit a lonely one. A driver takes him to and from school, he takes online computer classes, is getting better and better at writing code every day, and a woman comes and brings him enough food for the week every Sunday afternoon, pre-packaged dinners wrapped in tinfoil with carefully measured protein and sugar amounts. He does have perfect grades, it’s true, soaks up the information in his upper level classes like a sponge, ignores the older students who don’t pay attention to him. He hasn’t even hit puberty yet.

Then, of course, there’s Batman. He started watching him when he was younger, tracking his movements in the newspapers and the talk shows, creating a mental filing system of all the things he’s too scared to write on paper, namely that the Batman is Bruce Wayne, billionaire CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and his two adopted sons are the Robin(s).

He follows the news voraciously, researches gang dynamics and the politics of drug trafficking, and the crazy thing is that he actually _gets_ this stuff, develops a better understanding of the Gotham underworld than any other kid his age has, and maybe better than most adults. Everyone knows that crime is out there, but not a lot of people actually know why or how. The result of all of this is that he actually manages to track Batman’s whereabouts to a startlingly accurate degree.

Well, accurate is a bit of a misnomer—more nights than not, he waits around and sees neither cowl nor cape of Batman and his Robin, but he also manages to see more of the Dynamic Duo than anyone who isn’t a criminal does. Usually he just gets lucky with certain areas, combing social media and known watchdog sites to supplement what he already knows about the comings-and-goings of the criminals of Gotham, and manages to be just a few blocks from the action, but there have been a few rare occasions where he’s dead right.

One night he’s camped out on a roof in the East End, and nearly falls off of the fire escape when Batman launches out of the warehouse across the street, seconds before it explodes.

There’s no one around to stop him when he sneaks out of the empty Drake Manor at night with a camera and a backpack of essentials, when he rides his bike to the nearest subway station and roams Gotham City like a tiny wraith. He’s aware of the dangers, keeps to the good sides of town, doesn’t step foot inside Crime Alley or the Narrows even if he knows for a fact that’s where the Batman is. He’s got a metal frying pan that he carries around in his bag despite the heavy weight, and while he’s never had occasion to use it, he has the shattered remains of three priceless bowls hidden in the back of a guest room to prove he’s been practicing.

Except right now he’s not out running the streets, looking for Batman and Robin, because he’s sitting stiff and tall in the backseat of his father’s expensive, gas-guzzling car while his mother fixes her lipstick, tugging at the collar of his button-down and grimacing at what the next four hours will hold.

His parents live for these parties, when they’re stateside, love the excuse to bask in attention surrounded by the other elite. His father likes the camaraderie, the liveliness, and his mother likes any excuse to show off.

Tim… well, he hadn’t inherited his parents’ love for the limelight. And his parents, desperate to appear as put-together as possible, to project the image of doting parents and a brilliant child, have certain _expectations_ about how Tim should and should not behave.

_Sit up straight, smile more, straighten that bowtie, we did **not** raise you in a barn_ ; _shake hands, Timothy, connections are power in our world, don’t you realize that; you have to **smile**_ , _make polite conversation, and **do not embarrass us**_.

Tim follows every single piece of advice, every _order_ , he smiles until his face twitches. He laughs graciously and explains humbly about his advanced courses, nods earnestly when businessmen ask if he might be interested in working for them one day, when he gets older, and by the time the night is over, Tim feels like he’s Atlas, flattened under the weight of his parents’ expectations.

It’s gotten worse, since he’s gotten older; when he was a kid, at least, the main thing was to keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself, but now he’s expected to actually speak to these people, to know the right things to say to the right people, and his parents—his distant, estranged parents who pretend like Tim is their number one priority—watch with hawk-like eyes that make him bow his head in shame and guilt and fear of disappointment.

It’s started to manifest physically, this pure panic, and Tim has read enough about panic attacks on the Internet to know that this isn’t just him ‘being shy.’ At the last New Year’s party, Tim was so anxious that his hands shook the entire night, his stomach in knots, his vision blurry, and midway through the party, his entire body started trembling so forcefully that the man he was talking to actually looked concerned. He had just been strung so tight that he felt like he was going to pass out then and there, and—well, his parents had not been happy about being forced to leave before the ball dropped in New York.

That had been a fun ride home.

Now, Janet Drake opens her purse in the front seat and shakes out a small pill from an orange prescription bottle, hands it to Tim with a quelling look, and stashes the bottle away before he can read the label.

So he takes it.

The party’s at Wayne Manor, a celebration for a new acquisition in the energy department, which Tim knows because he reads the news, but all he can think about is how the news also points to a rapidly brewing gang war between the Penguin and a group of Colombians who have been moving in on his territory, and how instead of fighting the good fight, Batman and Robin have to play host to the biggest parasites in the city.

He must be fidgeting, because his mother sighs quietly, reaches into her purse, slips him another pill, and—obediently, like the good son he is, he takes it. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but twenty minutes into the event, he’s blinking a little too hard at lights that are a little too bright, and his hands aren’t shaking so much as quivering too quickly to notice, and he can guess at the nature of the medication that he’s ninety percent sure isn’t meant for children.

But he feels more relaxed than he’s ever felt at parties like these, so maybe it isn’t such a bad thing, maybe this will actually help him make his parents proud. His father prods his shoulder meaningfully with his finger and nods his head at a stately older woman with diamonds the size of baseballs around her neck, giving him a slight push in her direction.

Tim knows what this means, and he trots over like a good show pony, smiles like he’s auditioning for the biggest competition on earth, and has this woman wrapped around his finger in minutes. As much as he hates it, the pedantry of these events, the patterns are easy to identify, and he’s getting better at knowing what to do when and with whom. He knows without being told that his father wants him to get on this woman’s good side, wants him to pull the woman bashfully over to meet his dad, so that Jack Drake can then swindle his way into her brain and her wallet, to supplement the towering pile of investors already tucked inside his pocket.

As a principle, Tim doesn’t have a lot in common with his parents, but he’s a trust-fund baby, the son of a towering businessman and a fading socialite, and he can play the game when he’s in the mood for it. After three rounds of this, however, his smile is becoming a bit too forced, his remarks a bit too snappy for a twelve-year old, and his father almost shoves him at his mother, who catches him distastefully, like she’d been expecting a prize-winning trout but reeled in a turtle instead.

“Come along, Timothy, and let’s get you a bit more _settled_ ,” she says through clenched teeth, her lipsticked mouth never losing its smile even as she drags him to a secluded corner. “You are much too old for this type of behavior,” she hisses at him, her eyes sharp and un-amused. “You understand how important these events are for your father’s business, do you _not_?”

He doesn’t actually have to reply to her when she’s like this; she steamrolls over any semblance of a two-way communication channel.

“This is your _job_ , Timothy,” she continues, nails biting into his shoulder. “We provide for you, and in exchange, you help to ensure that we can continue to provide for you. Or do you want your father and I to go broke? Would you prefer that we send you to that nasty public school in, heaven forbid, Amusement Mile? Live in the _ghetto_? Because that’s what happens when you don’t have the right connections, Timothy, you wind up in the _streets_. And it would be _your_ fault, because your father and I are doing absolutely _everything_ that we can do to make sure this works for us. Do you want that, Timothy?”

The shaking is back now, he can’t help it; he wishes he could stop it, but it’s not exactly his choice. He’d do anything to keep his shoulders still, but it’s hard enough to keep his lower lip from wobbling, his eyes dry. He can’t even imagine what she might do if he started crying in public, if he made a scene.

She sighs heavily, and taps a small handful of the pills into his palm. “Take those, drink some water, and go sit on the balcony until you can get a _hold_ of yourself,” she orders, voice like steel, and Tim looks at her with too-wide eyes, because this is the form of Janet Drake that he fears most, this perfect creature hewn from marble, not flesh and blood, someone who knows what she wants and will let nothing—not even her son—get in her way.

He throws one pill in his mouth, ignoring the way his brain is screaming at him about recommended dosages and accidental overdoses, because the Xanax or the Valium or the Prozac, or whatever it is that his mother is giving him, it does work, for a bit, and he just wants to stop the shaking.

He spots Bruce Wayne himself while he skirts the edge of the room toward the balconies built into the wall of the spacious gala room, and the man is, predictably, surrounded by models with coy smiles and businessmen with knowing eyes. He wonders fleetingly if Bruce Wayne is having as awful a night as Tim is. He would guess that, inside, the Batman probably hates himself even more than Tim does for the performance he’s putting on, the mask he’s being forced to wear.

Tim finds an empty balcony, folds himself into the corner, out of view from the inside, and inhales the wintery air deeply. He likes the wintertime, likes it better than when the city is warm; he likes the way the air bites into his throat and robs him of breath, how the weather is, like everything in Gotham, relentlessly unforgiving.

He fists his hand in his pocket, pulls out the remaining pills his mother had given him, but that he hadn’t taken. At the rate she’s going, Tim’s pretty sure the bottle will be empty by morning, and he sticks his hand over the railing, lets the small white tablets plummet to their deaths on the ground below.

The door to the balcony suddenly squeaks open, and a teenager, maybe a few years older than him, eases onto the deck, deftly flipping the lock once he’s outside and pulling a pack of cigarettes from his inside jacket pocket with one hand, the other producing a lighter from within one of the potted plants on the balcony. He’s already lit the cigarette and inhaled a lungful the smoke before he seems to notice Tim, and the look he gives the smaller boy is thoughtful and not all that surprised. “Hey, kid. Didn’t see you there.”

The boy is Jason Todd.

The boy is Robin.

Tim’s knees go weak. Fifteen years old, five feet and eight inches and still growing, black hair and piercing blue eyes that look Tim up and down like he’s figuring out where all of his weaknesses are. He probably is. Tim has seen Robin in action multiple times, seen him kick gangsters out of windows and flip guys twice his size over his shoulder. Robin could probably kill Tim without breaking a sweat.

“I’m Jason,” he continues, smoke billowing out around his face as he speaks. “Do me a favor, and don’t mention this to anyone. I’m, uh, not really in the mood for a lecture after this little shindig if over.”

Tim tries very, very hard not to stumble over his words. “No worries,” is what he finally manages, and looks determinedly at the cityscape ahead instead of at the boy beside him.

“What’s your name, kid?” Jason asks conversationally, sauntering over to the edge of the balcony where Tim is, tapping his cigarette nonchalantly against the railing, the ash following the same path as the pills Tim had dropped just moments earlier. It’s too calculated a move to be a coincidence, and Tim’s eyes jerk up to meet Jason’s, who stares back with an interested look on his face.

Tim can’t help but think that Jason can see straight through him, all his secrets and lies, and he flushes. “Tim Drake,” he introduces himself. “You’re Bruce Wayne’s son, right? Tired of playing host?”

“As tired as you are as playing guest, I’d bet,” Jason replies pointedly, taking another deep drag. “How old are you, kid? Where your parents at?”

He casts a quick glance through the windows of the doors to the terrace, spots his mother standing next to a man he recognizes as a major investor of his father’s archeological pursuits. “I’m thirteen,” he answers quietly. He doesn’t mention his parents.

Jason follows his gaze, slowly turning back to stare at Tim. “I’ve heard about the Drake family,” he says slowly. “Your dad’s some kind of history enthusiast, yeah? He sponsors a lot of those exhibits at the Natural Science Museum.”

Tim gives the barest hint of a nod.

“I used to go there when I was a kid,” Jason nods. “Free admission if you were under twelve, and they always had heat.” He takes another drag, side-eyes Tim. “I take it your parents aren’t around a lot, huh?”

Tim flushes. “No, uh, my mom lives in Paris during the cold season and my dad goes up and visits her a lot, and then they vacation in the Southern Hemisphere during the summer, and between that, they’re always traveling for business, so…” he trails off when he catches sight of the look on Jason’s face; he looks like he’s just swallowed a lemon whole. “It’s not bad!” he adds hastily. “I just—I don’t see them, uh, super often.”

The older boy lights his second cigarette off the end of his first, tucking the pack securely inside his jacket pocket, carefully arranging the fabric so it doesn’t bulge. “I gotta say, it doesn’t sound _great_ , kiddo.”

He goes pale. The very last thing that he needs is Robin getting interested in his family’s particular brand of parenting— _or the lack thereof_ , he thinks nastily. He shoves that voice deep inside of his psyche, resolves himself to therapy when he’s older, and smiles weakly, because he thinks he might start crying for real if Jason keeps looking at him with that barely-concealed concern. “It’s fine,” he repeats, because if he says it enough, maybe it’ll actually come true.

There’s a sudden rap on the glass pane of the terrace doors, a rattling of the locked doorknob, and Jason angles his body to block his hand as he expertly grinds out his half-finished cigarette, dropping it cleanly over the edge before turning to smile at the immaculately-dressed butler who is waiting patiently inside.

“Hey Alfred,” Jason greets brightly. “I was just coming back in.”

The older man gives him a deeply unimpressed look. “I’m sure, Master Jason.”

Jason laughs freely, turning back to Tim. “Come on, kid, it’s freezing out here.”

Tim follows obediently, because he is a _good boy_ , and has barely closed the door behind him when a steel hand clamps down on his shoulder. He flinches visibly, but he doesn’t actually jump, so he considers it a win.

“I was looking for you, Timothy,” his father says, fingers digging uncomfortably into his skin, his smile forced.

“You must be Timmy’s dad,” Jason forces his way into the conversation, smiling a little too sharply for it to pass as genuine. “Jason Todd-Wayne. Good to meet you, champ.”

His father tries to peer down his nose at the lanky boy, but Jason’s tall, even if he isn’t as broad as the older man, and he looks Jack Drake dead in the eye as he continues to smile that dangerous grin. Tim can just tell from the way his nose wrinkles that his father isn’t impressed by this cocky boy who smells like cigarette smoke, but he can also tell by the way his hand tenses where it’s fisted into Tim’s jacket that his father is also intimidated. Jason might not be wearing his Robin costume right now, but he carries himself in a certain way, a careful, controlled stalk that’s just graceful enough to seem out of place, seem different. A wolf in a room full of sheep.

“It was great to meet you, Tim,” Jason leans down to talk to Tim, craning his neck in an effort to speak on his level. “If you ever need anything, I’m here, understand? Maybe I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Tim stutters when he replies, his blush back, “Yeah, that—that sounds good.” His father is back to tugging him around by the jacket, and he stumbles a little when he backs away. “See you.”

His father’s dragged him halfway across the room, muttering about degenerate street rats in polite company, before he can manage to cast a quick glance back. Jason’s still standing in the same spot, staring off in Tim’s direction with a strange, absorbed look on his face, like he’s trying to solve a difficult problem. He doesn’t meet Tim’s eyes, lost in thought, and Tim has the sneaking suspicion that the other boy knows more about Tim than he let on.

He doesn’t have time to ponder that, though, because he’s back to the rat races, back to introducing himself and smiling his Drake smile, and there isn’t room in his brain for anything else, is barely enough room for what he has. The party starts getting wild around one in the morning, and then it’s time to go home.

His head is spinning in relief and anxiety when he gets in the car, and when he gets home, he makes himself vomit up the pills and the glass of champagne his father had surreptitiously pressed into his hand around midnight, then throws up until there’s nothing in his stomach and he’s just dry-heaving, shaking against the porcelain toilet, his cheek pressed against the cold tile floor. He’s disgusted with himself, with his parents, with the performance he’d enacted all night, but more than that, he’s just _tired_. His parents’ plane trip back to France is a day from now, and all Tim can think as he lets his body drop fully onto the bathroom rug is that their departure can’t come quick enough.

He falls asleep on the bathroom floor with images of crystal chandeliers and sparkling wine glasses imprinted against his eyes, and the flash of a yellow and green figure against the starry night sky.

 

*****

 

Jason’s allowed to leave the party around two, when the respectable people start leaving and the only people left are the ones too drunk or high to get the hint that it’s time to head home. He’s itching to get out of his tuxedo and into his Robin suit, and spends the few hours remaining until dawn unceremoniously beating the shit out of criminals in Gotham.

He likes being Bruce’s adopted son, likes living in the Manor instead of an abandoned building, likes not having to worry about money, but he can’t stand having to play the role. When he had complained, Dick had been—well, a _dick_ about it. _I was a circus kid, Jason_ , he had laughed. _But I learned to deal with it, and so can you_. Jason had given him the one-finger salute and a scathing reply about how his history as a corner kid wasn’t exactly the same as living an alternative lifestyle with parents who loved him.

They’re still not really on the best of terms.

He can’t help it though; being Jason Wayne makes him feel fake, and he can’t stand the elite in this town, seethes when he sees the way they throw money at manatees halfway around the world while he had starved for years right under their noses in the same city. It’s not really surprising that all he wants to do after a long stint of dealing with that is to hit some shit. Bruce understands, he thinks.

He’s racing the sun to get back to the Cave, and pulls in on his bike right at six thirty, when his alarm would be going off for school on a weekday.

Bruce greets him absently from his chair in front of the control booth, three empty water bottles at his elbow. He tries not to drink at these functions, but there’s only so much he can fake, and if there’s one thing Bruce hates, it’s being a slave to his body and suffering from something as plebian as a hangover. “Good luck tonight?” he asks.

Jason shakes his hair out from under his helmet, rolls his shoulders. “Good enough. Knocked a couple of Penguin’s guys halfway to hell. That was fun. I think we should bump up security around the docks; they seemed jumpier than normal, like they were hiding something. I think something big is gonna go down soon.”

Bruce nods in agreement. “I’ve been monitoring the comms as well. He’s definitely making some sort of move. We’ll go out tonight and try to get some information about specific details.”

He nods, stripping out of the top layer of his armor, when his mind drifts back to the party. “Hey, Bruce? You know anything about the Drake family?”

His adopted father looks up from his screens, eyes narrowed. “The Drake’s? They’re our neighbors. Jack and Janet. He’s a businessman with a finger in the world of archeology. A typical flighty couple; they’re only in Gotham for a couple weeks at a time, and then they’re jetting back out again. They manage to stay connected around here, in spite of that.”

Jason bites his lip. “I was watching their son tonight. Tim Drake. He said he was thirteen. Tiny little speck of a kid, though, he looked like he was made of glass.”

Bruce makes a noncommittal noise, waiting for Jason to get to the point.

“I—look, I don’t know if he’s getting hit or what, but, Bruce—that kid needs help,” Jason says, his eyes suddenly blazing with renewed fury. “I watched his mom force-feed him like half a bottle of Xanax in the span of an hour, and when he was talking to me, he was twitching like he was about to leap out of his own skin. Then, I swear to god, I saw him jump like two feet into the air when his dad came back over to him. Looked like he’d seen a ghost, he was so nervous.”

Bruce's expression is inscrutable. "The Drake's have a pristine reputation. Their son is perfectly behaved."

Jason snorts. "Yeah, that means _fuck all_."

"Language," Bruce stresses.

"Bruce—"

"If you think it's worth investigating, then by all means," Bruce interrupts. "One of the most important things in our line of work is seeing the clues and making the correct connections."

Jason blinks. "I—on my own?"

Bruce suddenly grins. "Be a Robin, Jason. If your instincts are telling you that something isn’t right, follow them. You’re well-trained; you’re probably right.”

Jason thought back to earlier, to the tiny little boy with the scared eyes whose face screwed up in disgust as he tossed a handful of pills off the balcony, the hesitant smile when Jason made a joke, like he wasn’t sure if he could laugh, and then the look of pure panic on the kid’s face when his dad grabbed him. Fire roils in his belly, and he’s sure his expression spells murder. “Yeah,” he mutters, heading off toward the shower. “Yeah, I think it’s worth some goddamn investigation.”

 

*****

 

When Alfred Pennyworth opens the main door at the sound of the bell, hesitantly yet firmly pressed, he isn’t expecting to see a child—a pale, narrow-boned, impossibly tiny boy with a mop of black hair and large, luminescent blue eyes peering up at him. He is, however, a professional, and his surprise doesn’t show; instead, he blinks long and slow at the child, and says, “Good afternoon, Mr. Drake. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Tim’s eyes grow even wider. “I—hi,” he stammers, fingers knotting themselves together. “Um. I’m Tim. Your neighbor.” He nods in the direction of the Drake manor, which is miles away.

Alfred’s gaze flicks to the entryway, where there’s a red bicycle propped carefully against the railing on the bottom step. “That’s a long trip, Mr. Drake. Did you come here alone?”

Tim looks pale. “Yes, sir. Um. I was wondering…” He hesitates for a very long moment, long enough that Alfred almost prompts him again, and then blurts out, “Is Jason home? Jason Todd? Er—Jason Wayne?”

The older man gives him an inscrutable look, but simply says, “He’s working on homework right now. Please come in, Mr. Drake, and I’ll fetch him for you.”

The child floats through the door like an honest-to-god ghost, quick like he thinks Alfred may change his mind if he takes too long. He directs Tim to a spacious sitting room to wait, and Tim stands stock-still in the middle of the room, eyes darting around. He’s counted three cameras within the first thirty seconds of his entry, and wonders distantly how many more lurk within the house. He’s willing to bet there are more security measures in this manor than in every GCPD precinct combined.

“Timmy!” Jason’s voice calls through the empty door, and Tim jumps a little. The older boy lopes in, Alfred hot on his heels. His expression is analytical as he scans Tim from head to toe, looking for potential injuries. What he sees isn’t out of the ordinary; Tim looks like he’s swimming in the sweatshirt he’s wearing, the sleeves pulled down far over skinny wrists, his hair a mess, but he doesn’t look hurt.

He walks all the way into the room, not stopping until he’s standing toe-to-toe with the Drake kid, and Tim has to stop himself from shrinking away. The other boy is only fifteen, just two years older than Tim, but he’s a foot taller and has a fair amount of muscle on Tim.

“Hi, Jason,” he says, very shyly, and Jason grins at him. He’s got a way about him that Tim doesn’t understand, something special, something that makes him forget just what he’s capable of as a masked vigilante.

When he looks at Bruce Wayne, all he can see is Batman; it might be his muscles or his huge build, but Tim thinks it’s the intensity that does it, the look lurking behind his smiling façade that hints at something a bit darker and dangerous, that makes Tim incapable of seeing anything but the cowl.

Tim can see Robin in Jason, has spent enough sleepless nights watching Batman and his partner fly that he’d be blind if he couldn’t spot the lean muscle lurking beneath deceptively benign tee shirts and ripped jeans. Jason and Robin have the same smile, razor sharp and just a shade too mean, but Jason has something that Robin doesn’t, a look in his eyes that separates the two, that creates a division that Bruce Wayne and Batman don’t have.

Tim looks at Bruce Wayne, and all he can think is that Bruce Wayne is the mask for Batman, instead of the other way around. Dick had melted into the mask of Robin like he was born for it, but Tim gets the feeling that Jason doesn’t fit in quite the same way, that the mask itches at him, that the cape doesn’t fall as easily on his shoulders. Tim looks at Jason, and all he can think is that he’s built for something different, something _more_.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Jason says easily, reaching out to tousle his hair, and Tim does shrink back from that, because—well, because.

Tim darts a look at Alfred, who stands silently by the door, so fast that he doesn’t think anyone notices.

But Jason isn’t just anyone, he’s Robin, and he’s been trained to see the things that no one else thinks to. “Give us a minute, yeah, Alf?” he asks lightly, meeting the older man’s gaze over Tim’s head.

Jason waits a beat before looking back and saying, “So, yeah? What’s up? How’s it been, kid? Been a few weeks since I last saw you. Been busy.”

Tim bites back the words he wants to say. He saw Robin two nights ago, saw him take a two-by-four to the back that sent him to the ground for seconds before he had surged back up and kicked the man down a flight of stairs, swearing a blue streak while he’d done it. That was the same night that Batman got stabbed in the leg, and he’d popped up at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in his best business suit not five hours later as Bruce Wayne. “I, uh, good,” he stammers, when he realizes he’s waited too long to speak.

“Uh huh.” The other boy looks at him expectantly, and Tim’s heart sinks as he remembers the reason he’s here.

Shame crawls up in his throat. Shame and guilt and fear that he _knows_ , in his heart, he shouldn’t be feeling, because _it’s not his fault_ , but he’s still here, he’s still asking, and… it takes him another minute to work up the courage to speak again, Jason just standing there and waiting patiently. “You said, last time I saw you, that I could come to you if… if I needed anything,” he starts, looking steadily at the floor. “Um. And, uh…”

“Did something happen, Tim?” Jason prods, his gentle tone at odds with the way he unconsciously cracks his knuckles. His mind is already jumping to the worst conclusions; when he looks at Tim, at his pale skin, his ridiculously tiny wrists, all he can imagine is that skin marred and bruised and broken. He’s already planning how he’s going to make the boy’s assailants suffer.

“Well, it’s just that… you know, uh, that my parents aren’t really… around,” he says in a rush. “And normally, it’s not a problem, but my, ah, the lady who brings me food, she moved to Metropolis two weeks ago to be closer to her new granddaughter, and my parents _said_ they’d arrange for something else, for a new cook and all, but I think…” His voice drops in volume, and he starts mumbling. “I think they forgot, or they’re busy, or… something. And we don’t really keep food in the house, uh, at all, because I’m the only one there most of the time, so our pantries are empty, and, well…”

It takes Jason a minute to process what the kid has said to him. “I—Tim, when was the last time you _ate_?”

The kid is looking at the ceiling now, steadfastly ignoring any attempt at eye contact. “I was buying lunch at school,” is all he says. “But I only get a small amount of spending money per month, and I’d been saving it all to buy a new computer, which I did earlier this month, so I… I don’t really have any money on me right now, I didn’t think I’d need it…”

“Lunch,” Jason repeats. “What about breakfast? Dinner? The weekends?”

He makes a noncommittal noise. “I—I thought maybe the new person was just running late,” he admits. “But. Well. Obviously not.”

Jason exhales heavily through his nose. “You’ve been starving for two weeks, and you just now decided to get help.”

Tim looks startled, and his expression grows angry for just the briefest moment. “Who was I supposed to _ask_?” he demands. “Most adults aren’t really sympathetic to people who forget to _feed_ their son.” He’s regretting his words the second they’re out of his mouth, says hurriedly, “Please don’t tell anyone. I was just wondering if I could borrow some money, or a jar of peanut butter or _something_ until I could get in contact with my parents to remind them. I can pay you back later, unless you want to be compensated in the form of antique Qing Dynasty vases now.” His last words are spit bitterly through gritted teeth.

Jason wants to hit something. He doesn’t, because he is a responsible-ass adult, _thank you, Bruce_. “Come on,” he mutters, herding Tim awkwardly to the kitchen. “Let’s get some food in you. Two weeks, kid, _Jesus_. Where the f—hell are your parents?”

“Saudi Arabia,” Tim says automatically, letting Jason settle him into a chair at the island. “They’re doing a merger with an oil tycoon. Or a tyrant. I only know what I saw on the news.”

_Do not react, do not react_ , Jason repeats to himself, hands moving automatically to pull out covered dishes from inside the fridge. “I take it you’re not in a lot of contact,” he says evenly, his tone conveying none of his disgust.

Tim chooses his words carefully. “They’re big into email. We’re not usually in the same time zone. They’re not always in the same place, either. Next week, my mom is going back to Europe, but my dad is going to…” his face screws up as he tries to remember. “I think Shanghai.” He watches Jason go through the motions of heating up some sort of Italian casserole, his steady hands slicing a knife through the plastic wrap as easily as a batarang through skin.

“This should just take a few minutes,” Jason says. He tosses a loaf of bread at Tim, who catches it with the quick reflexes of someone who spends a lot of time stalking vigilantes on rooftops, and slides a stick of butter and his knife across the counter. “Poor man’s garlic bread. I’ll be right back, yeah, kid? Just a minute.”

Tim nods, only half paying attention as he almost attacks the loaf of bread, waiting until Jason’s left the room before shoving an entire slice in his mouth at once. He almost moans at the taste.

In any other situation, it would be funny, his predicament. A big house, set in the outskirts of town, and there is neither food nor loose cash lying around. His parents are fastidious about making sure Tim doesn’t spend money rashly, like other stereotypical rich kids, so there isn’t exactly piles of money in the corners of their tastefully decorated manor. And Tim knows better than to try and pawn off some of their décor for some spare coins; his mother had never laid a finger on him, but he wouldn’t put it past her if she came home and discovered something missing.

But it isn’t funny. He’s thirteen years old and has only seen his parents for two days in the last three months, and his empty house hasn’t had food in it for the last ten days, and there’s only so much fruit he can sneak home from his private school cafeteria that _doesn’t give out lunch vouchers, Mr. Drake, please have your parents contact the registrar’s office if you want to put more money on your card_.

He was almost ready to start stealing, before the thought of going to the Wayne’s had occurred to him. Not Batman and Robin, but the Wayne’s, the family that gave the most money to underprivileged and orphaned kids in the entire city, and Tim sees the irony, he swears to god he sees it, but desperation does funny things to willpower, and when it came down to it, shame didn’t overrule survival.

The microwave goes off, and Tim jumps so hard he almost falls out of his chair, but he can smell something that reminds him of chicken parmesan, so he drags a chair over to the uber-minimalist cabinets and hauls the pan out himself, because his stomach is literally composing songs of praise for this dish. He’s shoved down a third of the container by the time Jason returns, dragging Alfred behind him.

“Mr. Drake,” the butler nods politely, and Tim freezes.

Jason’s eyes go hard again when he sees how much of the food is gone, and Tim doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he hasn’t eaten in three days, because he thinks that might actually be the spark that sets Jason off completely.

“I’ve asked Alfred to make you some to-go meals, until your situation is remedied,” he says, forcing brightness into his tone.

Tim goes pale. _Jason told him, no, he can’t have_. “I—”

“I was sorry to hear about your electricity problems,” Alfred says smoothly. “Such a shame, all that food in the refrigerator going to waste, but Master Jason tells me that it’s back up and running, so this should tide you over until your parents can go grocery shopping.”

“Yeah,” Jason adds. “Sorry about the electricity problems.” His face is somehow blank and angry at the same time, but the look of sheer gratitude on Tim’s face, gratitude for lying, is enough to make him soften. “Finish your food, kid,” he grumbles, sliding onto the stool next to Tim and stealing his own slice of bread, buttering it generously.

They sit in companionable silence while Tim devours the best thing he’s eaten since Rosaria had left and Alfred methodically pulls out enough fresh produce and frozen meals to last a family of four for a month. Tim has the sneaking suspicion that, even if Jason didn’t tell Alfred the whole truth, the older man can guess the situation. He finds that, after years of silence and lies and half-truths, he doesn’t really care.

“I’m going to go find a suitable bag for these, Master Jason, Mr. Drake,” Alfred excuses himself, stepping away with his arms full of the food. It’s a miracle he manages it, and Tim wonders briefly whether the man might have superpowers, before dismissing the thought. Batman didn’t stand for metas in Gotham; he wouldn’t allow one to live in his house.

Jason waits several minutes after Alfred is gone, waits for the boy to finally stop eating and shove the plate away, and steels himself for the war he knows he’s about to start. “Tim?”

“Mhmm hmm?” the younger boy asks, looking at him with heavy eyes.

“Tim, do you know what abuse is?”

And Tim is out of his seat before the last syllable has even passed through Jason’s lips, so Jason’s on his feet as well, because that’s what he’s been trained to do, and Tim is almost snarling when he spits, “I am not being _abused_ , I am _not_. They have _never_ —” and he stumbles over the words, shutting down immediately, because _they’ve never hit me_ isn’t really going to help his case any, not with Jason, not with _Robin_. He takes a long breath of preparation, shoves the shudders down deep, meets Jason’s hard eyes. His tone is icy. “I am _not_ being abused by my parents.” He wonders if Jason can hear the doubt, can hear the anger, the cracks hidden in his wavering resolve.

Jason holds his hands up in surrender, and his tone is careful when he says quietly, “You understand that this—this situation you’re in… it’s not _normal_. You get that, don’t you? That this isn’t something that kids are supposed to have to deal with? That… that this isn’t _right_.”

All of Tim’s bravado leaves him like he’s been punched in the stomach, and he deflates, unable to meet the other boy’s sympathetic gaze. “Yeah,” he finally mutters, looking at his fists in his lap. He sounds _sad_. “I know that.”

It’s the closest thing to an admission that Jason thinks he’s going to get, and he leans forward, carefully, because Tim jumps at shadows and flinches at drafts of wind, much less another human being, but the small, fragile child allows Jason to tug him gently against his side, and the kid burrows against his lean, taut stomach, hides his face in his chest and breathes.

Years later, Tim understands. What he experienced at the hands of his parents wasn’t abuse in the traditional sense of the word, the way people typically think of it. They didn’t curse at him, didn’t call him filthy words, and they _never_ hit him. What they did was subtler, needling him until his bones were filled with self-doubt and desperate anxiety. But it isn’t an easy road.

Jason looks up, meets Alfred’s eyes across the room, where the man’s fingers are clenched tight around a fairly large cooler full of pre-prepared dishes and microwave-proof meals, and he has to force himself to calm down, matches his breathing to Tim’s, because he is so goddamn angry that he thinks he could burst.

Alfred drives Tim back to the Drake Manor, fits the red bike in the back of one of Bruce’s many cars, and Jason would bet that he personally carries the food inside and conducts a cursory sweep of the house before he finally leaves Tim alone there. Bruce might be the one to officially adopt his strays, but Alfred is the one who always gets attached first.

Jason heads to the Cave, where he’s sure to find Bruce, but he doesn’t look at his adopted father, his mentor, his partner, he just strips down to workout clothes and gives into his anger, punching until the itch in his bones hurts a little less.

All he can think about is Tim, of the tiny little boy who’s thirteen but looks ten, of his skinny arms and too pale skin that doesn’t hide the dark circles under his eyes. All he can think about is how he wants to fly to goddamn Saudi Arabia and wring the necks of Jack and Janet Drake until they understand how bad they’ve fucked up as parents, because this? How do they deviate this far from the mark? They’ve got all the things that Jason never had, and yet they force Xanax down their son’s throat at parties he doesn’t want to be at, they line him up with a small army of helpers who make sure he gets to and from school without causing a scene, they lock him up on the outskirts of Gotham in an empty house, and then they don’t even bother to make sure he has _food_?

Jason hits the punching bag he’s been pummeling so hard that it disconnects from the hook, and it’s the first time he’s done that with a weighted bag this large.

It makes a loud enough sound that Bruce looks up from his computer and his files. “Rough day at school?”

Jason wears angry eyes and a deep frown. “What kinds of parents don’t fuckin’ feed their kid, Bruce? They’re millionaires, and their kid is starving in their big-ass manor, alone. My mom was a drug addict; there was a reason, if not an excuse. What kind of excuse do _they_ have?”

Bruce’s eyes look hooded, coming into his own, unique form of righteous anger. “The Drake’s have a reputation for callousness,” he says carefully. “They’re vigorous business partners. Ruthless people with a veneer of charm. Janet Drake throws fantastic parties. Jack Drake owns a reputable golf course. No one looks too closely.”

“At least the people in Crime Alley stab you in your front,” Jason mutters savagely. “You blue bloods poison each other until you’re all rotten through.”

 

*****

 

Tim is sitting in the kitchen with the new housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, when the story breaks on the seven o’clock news. Jason Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s second adopted son, is dead.

Tim drops his cup, doesn’t even react when the glass shatters all over the Italian tile floor, doesn’t hear Mrs. Mac’s worried exclamations. Tim can’t hear anything.

More information emerges in the days that follow. Jason Wayne was killed in an explosion in the Middle East, a terror attack of some sort. He wasn’t the target, he was just an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire. Tim knows that isn’t true. He knows there’s something more. It takes another few weeks before he manages to figure it out. The gardener comes to mow the lawn, and Tim throws up for twenty minutes when he sees a crowbar in the back of the man’s truck among the tools.

Tim’s parents are in the jungles of Chile, a good two hours trek from anything remotely resembling cell service, when it happens. Mrs. Mac makes the judgment call to not let Tim attend Jason’s funeral. Tim doesn’t even remember what he said to her during the ensuing argument. He watches the procession of cars past his driveway in the direction of Wayne Manor and doesn’t get out of his bed all day.

Tim sneaks out at night and watches a wounded, grieving Batman pummel criminals into the concrete. He watches Bruce Wayne take out his guilt on drug dealers and child rapists instead of the monster responsible, and he thinks about the strength (or the weakness?) it takes to look your child’s murderer in the eye and let him walk away alive.

Weeks later, Tim sneaks onto the grounds of Wayne Manor, where he knows Jason’s grave is, and lays a well-worn, well-loved stuffed animal on the cool stone. It’s a robin, it’s Tim’s Robin, that he’d gotten for his eighth birthday from his nanny, back when he’d first fallen in love with Batman and his sidekick. He’s tied a green and yellow bandana around it’s neck, had carried it around with him for years before delegating it to a place on his shelf, and now—

Well, now it’s over. Because Robin is dead. Jason Peter Todd is dead.

Tim doesn’t cry. He’s done crying. He just stares at the graves, the carved letters in the stone that spell out _Jason Peter Todd_. No Jason Wayne. Jason has always been his own person.

“Aren’t you a little far from home?”

Tim has never had a face-to-face conversation with Bruce Wayne in his life, but he’s spent long enough stalking the streets that he doesn’t need to ask who exactly is standing behind him. “Mr. Wayne,” he says, already turning and stepping half-heartedly in front of the stuffed animal he’s placed on Jason’s—on Jason’s grave.

Bruce Wayne is large and imposing in an impeccably cut charcoal grey suit, his dark hair pushed back from a face that is sharp and tired and tense. He’s _ridiculously_ big, almost two feet taller than Tim and laughably more muscular. “Mr. Drake,” he says, more like he’s accusing Tim of something rather than naming him. “I didn’t realize you knew Jason.”

Tim swallows, both at the tone in Wayne’s voice ( _Batman’s_ voice) and his use of the past tense. He’s right, of course. Tim doesn’t know Jason, he _knew_ him. “He helped me out.” Tim’s voice is barely a whisper. “When I was having… problems… with my parents.”

Bruce Wayne’s face is flat and inscrutable when he leans down, picks up the stuffed toy robin Tim has been trying to conceal. “A robin, huh?” he says conversationally.

Tim can’t stop his flinch. He’s too jaded to even hope Bruce doesn’t notice.

Bruce rubs his fingers pointedly against the colorful bandana Tim has tied around its neck. Robin’s colors.

“I know,” Tim blurts, because he can’t _help_ it, can’t stop himself, not when he’s staring up at Batman himself, not when they’re both talking over the rim of Robin’s grave. Not when Tim has been stifling sobs in his pillow for weeks, watching the news with salty cheeks as Batman came closer and closer to crossing the line every night. Not when Tim can see the physical grief lining the face of the person he idolizes more than anyone else in the world. “I’m sorry.”

Bruce Wayne doesn’t say a word for a long minute. “You know what?”

It takes Tim another second before he can talk, but when he does, his voice doesn’t shake. “You’re the Batman. Your son, Dick Grayson, was the first Robin. Jason is— _was_ —the second Robin.” He pauses, licks his lips, doesn’t dare look Bruce Wayne in the eye. “I meant what I said. He helped me out. He was a good person. He was—my friend.”

“Come inside, Tim,” Batman says, and Tim jumps a little at the first time the man uses his real name. “I think we need to talk about some things.”

 


End file.
